LONG NIGHTS, BRIGHT SCREENS: BRIGHT LEAVES

(USA, 105 min., 2003)


BRIGHT LEAVES is a subjective, autobiographical meditation on the allure of cigarettes and their troubling legacy for the state of North Carolina. It's about loss and preservation, addiction and denial. And it's about filmmaking - home movie, documentary, and fiction filmmaking - as the filmmaker fences with the legacy of an obscure Hollywood melodrama that is purportedly based on his great-grandfather's life. BRIGHT LEAVES explores the notion of legacy - what one generation passes down to the next - and how this can be a particularly complicated topic when the legacy under discussion is a Southern one tied to tobacco.

Some publications related to this event:
April and May, 2005. - 2005